UPDATE January 2022. After considering many previous suggestions for mitigation by the Town of Osceola, the following areas have been modified to meet their concerns:
- The depth of the quarry will be above the level of Lotus Lake.
- The quarry will operate only weekdays from 7am – 6pm.
- The quarry has lessened its operating area and increased the distance to nearest residence by 50%.
- The quarry will not operate from November 15 to March 15.
- Sound levels will be 55 dba or less at nearest residences.
- The active operating area will be confined to less than 20 acres over 10 years.
Incompatibility is a term often used to describe Blue Rock Quarry by a few detractors. Yet all the three existing area quarries within a mile have closer distances to private residential homes. And some of the loudest voices against Blue Rock come from those over a mile away. In the quarry business, it’s not blasting that makes the most noise but rather crushing – which existed at all three existing Osceola Town area quarries yet generated minimal public complaints. During 2015/2016, all three existing quarries received permits to continue operations from the Town of Osceola with minimal public concern.
To view how homes and quarries co-exist not only here in our area, but all over the country, see the below aerial images, including the first map of our quarry area. (Also see the Blue Rock Slide Presentation under the Stories/Messages tab.)
Image 1 (above). Our quarry and two of the three existing quarries are shown above. Red boxes are residences. The black outline is Blue Rock’s buffer property of approximately 200 acres. A small portion (green) of the above is the size of the Blue Rock quarry after 10 years, which would still be smaller than the Haas quarry. The orange area is the size of the quarry after 30 years. Can you appreciate that nearly 140 acres of Blue Rock property is a natural buffer and will never be quarried?
Image 2 (above): Quarries and homes are not compatible? Hardly. The above quarry in Texas has hundreds of homes built right up to the border. A close examination shows the homes range from $350,000 to well over $600,000. And yes, the quarry does blasting, crushing and trucking.
Image 3 (above): Across the nation, quarries and residential areas co-exist. The photo above is the Burnsville, MN quarry with nearby homes – some in excess of $900,000. After 50 years of operation, the Burnsville mayor was quoted as saying “the quarry has been a good neighbor”.
Blue Rock Quarry 